Bitch Media - Maggie Gyllenhaalhttp://bitchmagazine.org/taxonomy/term/11923/0
enNew Drama “The Honorable Woman” Portrays a Powerful Woman on the Edge of a Breakdownhttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/new-drama-%E2%80%9Cthe-honorable-woman%E2%80%9D-plays-into-our-fascination-with-psychologically-unstable-female
<p class="normal"><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/the-honorable-woman-sundance-tv-review.jpg" alt="maggie gyllenhall, in the desert, wearing a headscarf, in The Honorable Woman" width="670" height="377" /></p>
<p class="normal">Like <em>Homeland</em>, it’s closest cousin in the world of prestige dramas, new drama <em><a href="http://www.sundance.tv/series/the-honorable-woman" target="_blank">The Honorable Woman</a> </em>places<em> </em>a powerful-but-unstable woman in the midst of one of the great geopolitical crises of our time. While <em>Homeland</em>’s Carrie Mathison tries to preempt terrorist plots in the aftermath of 9/11, the woman at the center of this latest drama, Nessa Stein (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal), has the power to mitigate the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. For all their critical thinking skills, both protagonists are volatile and psychologically distressed, leaving viewers worried they might fall apart at any moment. With so few representations of powerful women on television, it is a curious coincidence that those that do make an appearance are so often on the edge of a nervous breakdown.</p>
<p class="normal"><em>The Honorable Woman</em> debuts in the United States this <a href="http://www.sundance.tv/series/the-honorable-woman" target="_blank">Thursday on Sundance TV</a>&nbsp;(the show is co-produced by the BBC) and could not come at a more timely moment, as headlines this week are full of news about <a href="http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-strongly-condemns-shelling-school-gaza-sheltering-civilians-and-calls" target="_blank">Israel shelling a UN shelter in Gaza</a>. I previewed the first four episodes of this eight-part thriller, which tells the story of a wealthy Jewish family living in the United Kingdom whose history is intertwined with the crisis in the Middle East. At the center of the narrative is Nessa Stein who, together with her brother Ephrah (Andrew Buchan), must decide how to spend the fortune left to them by their father, a man who produced weapons for Israel in its earliest wars against Palestine.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="normal">The show is crammed with impenetrable plots involving international espionage and political intrigue. The story would be utterly bewildering if it weren’t for the compelling relationships between members of the Stein family, which serve as a thread running through the narrative. <em>The Honorable Woman</em> starts off violent: the very first scene of the show is a flashback to when Nessa and Ephra were small children, sitting in silence as a terrorist violently murdered their father in a well-appointed London restaurant. Years later, the siblings have chosen to use their inheritance to bring prosperity to Palestine by setting up schools and laying data cables, in an effort assuage their guilt over their family’s personal involvement in that country’s tragedies. The series tracks how quickly Nessa’s naive optimism in her ability to foster peace in the Middle East explodes as she confronts the realities of corruption and violence on the ground.</p>
<p class="normal">When we meet Nessa as an adult, she is already broken, spending her nights sleeping alone in a panic room and given to spontaneously bursting into tears. Yet, on the exterior, she is poised in her roles as the public face of her family’s business and as a newly appointed member of the House of Lords. Part of the show’s tension involves watching the two parts of Nessa’s character—her competence and her fragility—play out. This dynamic is reminiscent of Carrie in <em>Homeland</em>, who walks a similar tightrope between brilliance and collapse. The weakness in these characters is particularly apparent because so many of their male counterparts seem to be able to keep it together in the face of equally demanding situations.</p>
<p class="normal"><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/the-honorable-woman-590x350.jpg" alt="nessa stein wearing a cloak of the house of lords" width="670" height="370" /></p>
<p class="normal">In <em>The Honorable Woman</em>, Ephrah experiences many of the same anxieties as his sister, but unlike her, he is able to maintain the trappings of a family life, with a wife and children. Much like Carrie, Nessa is alone in a sanitized world except for intense, stolen moments with men that she’ll never seek out for long-term relationships. Indeed, all the powerful women in Nessa’s world appear to be alone, which is perhaps a reference to how much harder it is for a woman to pursue a demanding career than it is for a man. A less charitable explanation would be that TV writers do not believe that a married woman will be taken seriously as a player in high-stakes geopolitics.</p>
<p class="normal">As the show’s name indicates, Nessa has unfailingly good intentions, which is another thing she has in common with Carrie. While both characters sometimes makes bad choices, their motivations are always good, making them somewhat less interesting than the male anti-heroes that fill prestige television shows. Unlike Tony Soprano or Don Draper, Nessa Stein is largely monochromatic, which seems like a wasted opportunity since Maggie Gyllenhaal is masterful at portraying nuance and complexity. She’s a warm-hearted crusader, not someone with darkness to bury. Given Nessa’s predictability, the show’s drama comes less from anticipating what she will do next and more from watching what others do to her. For all her wealth, titles and ambitions, she is someone to whom things happen, rather than someone who shapes the world around her.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p class="normal">The real-life horrific events that are currently unfolding in Gaza this week provide the backdrop to the U.S. premier of <em>The Honorable Woman</em>. The show provides context and sheds light on how deeply connected those of us in other nations are to what is happening in the Middle East. It also throws into relief how women are particularly affected by war: a hard to forget scene in the fourth episode shows exactly how rape is used as a weapon of warfare and illustrates how women’s bodies are often tied to contested territories. Ultimately, the show leaves viewers with the sense that for all the attempts to bring women into the halls of power, men still rule the world.</p>
<p><em>Related Reading: <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/complex-heroines-of-scandal-and-enlightened" target="_blank">The Likability Trap — Why We Root for the Antihero but not the Antiheroine</a>.&nbsp;</em></p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.elizabethsegran.com/">Elizabeth Segran,</a></em><em> is a writer who lives in Cambridge, MA. She contributes to The Atlantic, Fast Company, Salon and Foreign Policy, among other publications.&nbsp;</em></p>
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http://bitchmagazine.org/post/new-drama-%E2%80%9Cthe-honorable-woman%E2%80%9D-plays-into-our-fascination-with-psychologically-unstable-female#commentsMaggie GyllenhaalTVFri, 01 Aug 2014 00:21:43 +0000Elizabeth Segran26967 at http://bitchmagazine.orgThinking Kink: Secretary and the Female Submissivehttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/thinking-kink-secretary-feminist-magazine-film-sex-bdsm-kink-movies
<p>I first watched <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274812/" target="_blank"><em>Secretary</em></a> back in summer 2004. As a feminist curious about kink, I was intrigued but also prepared to be irritated, as on the surface the movie appeared to endorse a very heteronormative, patriarchal representation of BDSM.</p>
<p><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7113/7561506554_3d2eb60ab4_n.jpg" align="left" hspace="10" vspace="5" alt="Lee sitting at a desk with Grey behind her" width="209" height="320" />There are definitely several reasons why Lee, the protagonist played by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0350454/" target="_blank">Maggie Gyllenhaal</a>, is not a good representation of a female submissive. It is too easy to explain away her submissive tendencies with the fact she has just been released from a mental hospital and is a self-harmer. Her father is an unstable alcoholic, so Lee's attraction to tightly wound lawyer E Edward Grey (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000652/" target="_blank">James Spader</a>) can be dismissed as a Freudian need for a strong male figure. She has never had a job before and is meek and easily intimidated. A sitting duck for an evil dominant man to abuse, right?</p>
<p>In some ways, the power dynamics of the film do feel very effed up. Before their kinky relationship develops, Grey torments Lee by aggressively criticizing her work and appearance and forcing her to do menial tasks. If this behavior wasn't later neutralized by a loving relationship, it would just be a hostile boss abusing a vulnerable subordinate. Furthermore, the stereotypes of the submissive female often reflect situations where women are in subordinate positions to men as maids, secretaries, or schoolgirls. So what is it about <em>Secretary</em> that saves it from simply reinforcing male dominance and female submission?</p>
<p>I think the answer lies in the complex character of Lee, who exhibits increasing personal strength as the story progresses. When Grey's ex-partner accuses her of being "submissive," Lee promptly chews out a telemarketer to show she is only submissive when she wants to be. After the initial shock of her first spanking, we see her stroke Grey's finger to let him know how much she has enjoyed it. Her typing mistakes become deliberate (see <a href="/post/thinking-kink-swinging-both-ways-50-shades-of-grey-dominant-submissive-bdsm-feminist-magazine-sex" target="_blank">a discussion of these deliberate mistakes in a previous post</a>), and her participation in Grey's games of dominance (e.g., asking him what she is allowed to eat for dinner) is not just willing but actively gleeful. She tries to get her nice-but-dull boyfriend Peter to spank her, but unfortunately he just doesn't get it. Lee's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8g9s-eQsCg" target="_blank">sexuality blossoms</a> through her interactions with Grey, and she controls how she wants to be seen by him, having glamorous pictures taken of herself and presenting them to him.</p>
<p>Far from being a victim, Lee is the partner who wants more, pushing her dom to the limit with the memorable "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDr_h_87R0E&amp;feature=relmfu" target="_blank">worm mail</a>" she sends to provoke him into punishing her. It is Grey who feels ashamed of their kinky relationship, at one point writing her a letter saying "I'm sorry. This is disgusting. I don't know why I'm like this." It is Grey who calls off the relationship out of guilt, saying "You have to go or I won't stop," even though Lee clearly doesn't want him to stop. And when Grey fires her in order to sever contact, the wallop Lee gives her boss is harder than any of the slaps he's lavished upon her backside. The trope of unwilling, abused woman and controlling man is certainly inverted in this powerful scene.</p>
<p><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8150/7561506416_8181858e0f_n.jpg" align="right" hspace="10" vspace="5" alt="Lee wearing cuffs and a collar in the office" width="320" height="203" /><em>Secretary </em>also shows that a submissive is not just anyone's dartboard. Lee tries dating other kinksters, but fails to gel with any of them, and hence won't submit to them: "There was the guy who kept ordering me to pee on his patio, and when I refused, said 'I thought you were a masochist'." Lee rejects normal coupledom by breaking her engagement to Peter, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AayXixv_8X8&amp;feature=relmfu" target="_blank">goes on a mission</a> to win Grey back. She shows immense strength in her prolonged sit-in at Grey's desk, and when Peter attempts to remove her, punches him and knees him in the family jewels—hardly the actions of a docile woman.</p>
<p><em>Secretary</em> smartly avoids appearing like a bad porn script by putting the non-blonde, non-busty Maggie Gyllenhaal into the role of Lee, and dressing her in long sleeved blouses and demure skirts throughout. There is only one brief sex scene, and the only nudity is in the tender scene where Grey bathes Lee. Director Steven Shainberg builds erotic tension in the film through suggestion, not through the usual blatant sexual symbols favored by Hollywood. It's nice to see a film that doesn't objectify a woman in order to show she is a sexual being—the scene where Lee tries to spank herself wearing a long-sleeved night dress and granny panties reminded me of what I might wear on a British winter night!</p>
<p>While it could've used better power dynamics and more pre-kink negotiation, <em>Secretary</em> was a brave and original step forward in addressing sexual complexity, especially in women.</p>
<p><strong>Previously:</strong> <a href="/post/thinking-kink-female-submissive-pop-culture-sub-dom-feminist-magazine-sexuality"target="_blank">No, Female Submission Doesn't Mean Oppression</a></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/thinking-kink-secretary-feminist-magazine-film-sex-bdsm-kink-movies#commentsBDSMFemale SubmissivesJames SpaderMaggie GyllenhaalSecretarySteven ShainbergSex and SexualityFri, 13 Jul 2012 18:57:55 +0000Catherine Scott17814 at http://bitchmagazine.org